Chapter 42
Caeo
My eyelids crack open as my swaying limbs settle. I hit the ground painfully, grunting as I look up at the fae who’s been carrying me.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, rubbing his shoulder.
Yeah right.
I sit up, blinking as my head spins. It’s darker than I remember, the surrounding pine trees blocking what little sunlight remains.
“This is only a quick break,” Aerona says, somewhere behind me. “Be ready to move.”
The fae who carried me sits on the forest floor and pulls out a waterskin. Another fae sets Owena down much more gently than I was deposited, then joins the other in his water break. The rest set themselves up in a perimeter to keep watch.
My throat cracks as I watch them drink, mouth thick with sticky saliva.
“Here.” Reid’s hand appears in front of my face, holding a waterskin. I tear it from his grasp, pouring the cold, blissful liquid down my throat.
It washes through me like a flood in the desert, too fast. Not enough. My stomach clenches as it hits. I hold the next mouthful, letting it soak into my parched tongue. Letting its cool relief sink in. I’m about to chug the rest of it when Reid’s hand lands on my shoulder.
“Pace yourself, man.” He sets a basket of food on the ground in front of me; Aerona approaches Owena with a similar one, further off. “They’re really hoping you’ll be able to walk on your own once you’ve eaten.” He sits down next to me.
I’m already scarfing down an exceptionally pungent hunk of cheese, its overpowering flavor not enough to keep me from devouring it in under a minute. It’s not blood. That’s all that matters.
Concern flickers in Reid’s eyes as he watches me eat. “We should talk. Catch up.”
I swallow a mash of fruit I didn’t quite chew properly. “I don’t want to talk about it.” My gaze snags on the basket, tracking its weave as it goes round and round, in and out.
It takes another gulp to force the painful lump down. Reid hands me a waterskin, and I dump its contents into my mouth. Half drips along my chin, but at least it washes down the food. My head’s still spinning, but not as much as before.
“Slow down, or you’ll make yourself sick,” Reid warns.
I take a deep breath, then try to take smaller bites. It’s difficult. I glance at Reid.
“Your face is back to normal.”
He frowns, touching his cheek with his fingers. “It must be the distance,” he mutters, then focuses on me. “It was only temporary, unlike you, blue-eyes. I guess that charm you wore made them gray?”
It takes my brain a few seconds to make sense of what he said.
Right. ‘My father’s charm.’
I frown. “How do you know about that?”
Reid sighs. “Remember Emmrich?”
I nod as I take another swig from the waterskin.
“He’s fae—his real name’s Emlyn. He told me about it.”
Reid launches into a story about how Emlyn was spying on my mother for my half-brother, Prince Taran. When the two of us disappeared, Taran abducted Ellie because he thought he’d need her to convince me to turn against my mother. Reid persuaded Emlyn to talk, and they followed.
I blink. “Huh.”
Reid tilts his head, eyeing me. “That’s all you have to say?”
Well, my brain is saying a million things, mostly half-formed thoughts about Ellie being kidnapped, Reid going through all that for me, and how I don’t really need any more motivation to put as much distance as physically possible between myself and my mother, but its connection to my mouth is apparently broken.
I sink my teeth into an apple and focus on chewing.
“So… what’s with you and the princess?” Reid asks after a minute.
“I really don’t want to talk about it.”
I spot Owena sitting nearby, eating a handful of berries. If things had gone the way Mother planned, I could be at my wedding right now, with her pressed beneath me, my body thrusting, out of my control…
“But are you together?”
I blink, dropping the apple as I whirl toward Reid.
“No! She’s just a friend! A good friend. As much a prisoner as I was—I wouldn’t have survived without her. But she knows I love Ellie. There’s nothing else there!”
“Alright, I get it!” Reid raises his hands defensively. “Ancients. Calm down.”
He hands me another hunk of cheese. I stare at it in my palm while counting my breaths, trying to bury the images that keep slithering back up.
One… two… three…
I don’t know if this sizzling beneath my skin means I’m about to burst, or shatter into nothing.
Reid groans, dropping his head into his hands. His fingers rake down his skin until they tent over his mouth and nose. A few seconds later, he peeks up at me. “No offense, but you seem a slight breeze away from having a complete mental breakdown.”
A sharp laugh huffs out of me. “Oh, we’re well past that.”
Reid inhales, hesitating. “Maybe we shouldn’t meet up with the others just yet.”
My stomach heaves, almost spewing everything I just ate.
“But Ellie! You said she was here. I have to get to her.” My heart hammers against my ribs. He can’t really mean that, can he? Why would he even suggest that?
Reid pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes. “I don’t actually know where she is at the moment.”
“WHAT?” I’m on my feet.
Nope. Too fast.
Reid jumps up and catches me, guiding me down as the forest tilts sideways.
“Calm down, man.” He moves in front of my face. “She was with us, but she doesn’t remember you. She couldn’t understand the plan. I think she went to help Taran.”
“You think?” My head spins with every pound in my ears. My body spasms with the need to do something—anything—but Reid’s grip on me tightens, holding me still.
“She was there one second and gone the next. But we needed to get to you, so there wasn’t time to go after her.”
I shove his hands off me. “So you just left her?”
“You weren’t really in the best condition to drag around searching for her,” Reid snaps. “And by that point, the guards were actively hunting us.”
“We have to go back.” My heart leaps in the direction it assumes the castle is, but my mind blares in warning. My stomach sides with my brain. I gag, barely keeping my insides down.
Hands settle on my shoulder. “We can’t go back now, Caeo,” Owena says, and I flinch at her touch. “We have to hope she found a way out. If she didn’t, we can make a plan to retrieve her—but you’re in no shape to do anything useful right now.”
I’m on the verge of exploding. “She could be captured—killed!” The other fae are all staring now.
Owena kneels in front of me, her dark eyes absorbing my panic. “It would be foolish of your mother to kill her.”
My breath wheezes out as I cover my face with my hands, pressing my eyes shut.
She’s right—my mother knows Ellie. If she wants me back, the worst thing she could do is kill her. Ellie’d be much more valuable as bait.
The drumming of my heart slowly settles. I swallow, then nod. Owena squeezes my shoulder before letting go.
I glance up, forcing myself to look at her. “Did you get enough to eat?”
Her lips twitch with a wistful smile. “I don’t think I could eat anymore without feeling ill.”
“Will you be able to walk?”
Bright laughter bubbles out of her. “Oh, they only want you to walk. They have no qualms about carrying me.” She shifts the fur coat I’d given her to reveal her cleavage, in case I didn’t catch her meaning.
“Lucky you,” I mutter, looking away.
“Time to move,” Aerona calls, clapping her hands together.
As Owena returns to the two fae who carried us before, Reid grabs my arm, hauling me up. After a wobbly moment, my balance settles, and he pats my back before following Aerona through the darkening woods.
The sooner we get there, the sooner we can make a plan to find Ellie.
* * *
We approach a camp in disarray. Fae rush here and there, packing up leather tents, loading them into wooden carts and wagons as sheep bleat loudly in the distance. It’s the exact opposite of what you’d expect of a camp after dark.
A fae man keeping watch jogs toward us, stopping to speak with Aerona and the others at the head of our group. The fae carrying Owena gently lowers her before joining them.
Aerona says something that, judging by her posture and tone, is likely a curse, and the rest of the fae dash to the camp, joining the mad scramble. She storms after them, leaving Reid, Owena, and me looking at one another before coming to an unspoken agreement that we should follow.
We find her at a campfire near the only tent that isn’t being torn down, gesticulating wildly at a taller version of me.
He isn’t just taller—it’s as if someone took me and straightened all my normal person lines into a brooding face and angular frame.
That must be my brother. It’d be easy to feel inferior if he didn’t look on the outside exactly how I feel on the inside.
“What do you mean the plan failed?” Aerona barks at him.
“The queen lives. We had to flee. You should go. You don’t want to risk being found with me.”
“But we did our part! We have your brother!” She flings her arm in my direction.
His gaze lands on me. There’s no joy, no satisfaction, no relief in his expression. He turns away.
“I appreciate everything you’ve done, Aerona. I do. But you should leave.”
Her jaw tightens, fists clenching as if holding back an explosion.
It comes out as a sharp exhale from her nostrils. “Goodbye, Taran.” She storms off, disappearing into the chaos of the camp.
He slumps as he watches her leave, then turns to us. His somber expression transforms, his green eyes narrowing. Not at me, but Owena. She tenses against my arm, tightening a coil beneath my skin as Taran marches over. I force myself to breathe.
“What is she doing here?”
I step between them. “Hi, I’m Caeo.”
Taran glares at Reid, ignoring me entirely. “Why did you bring her?”
“Because I wouldn’t come without her,” I say, and Taran finally looks at me. This is so weird. “You must be my brother. Taran?”
He takes a step back. “What have they told you about me?”
Shit. I attempt to pierce through the tornado of memories rampaging through my mind for what Owena actually said. A loud crash interrupts my thoughts—someone running their cart into a wagon.
Shaking my head, I try to focus. “That our mother had your father killed and is trying to steal your throne. And that you brought Ellie here to convince me to side with you over her.”
Taran’s eyes widen. “You remember Ellie?”
“Owena broke the curse on me. She’s here to break Ellie’s.”
Multiple emotions flash across Taran’s face, too quickly to track. His eyebrows press together as he settles on anger.
“You realize that by bringing her here, not only will our mother be hunting us, but now Ystyr will, too.”
My chest tightens. “I didn’t think that far ahead. I was a little preoccupied with getting as far away from our psychotic mother as possible.”
“And yet you’ve increased the odds that she’ll steal you back by adding to our pursuers and saddling us with a pampered enemy princess!”
“Please don’t speak about me as if I’m not standing right here.” Owena steps out from behind me, meeting Taran head-on. Despite only coming up to his shoulders, she holds herself with the air of someone who towers over him.
Taran stares down at her, his upper lip curled with distaste. “I am quite aware of your presence.”
“Of course you are. You’re using it as an excuse to ignore your own failings.”
Taran’s nostrils flare, channeling our mother. I resist the urge to step back, but Owena continues on, unfazed.
“If our risk of being followed is great enough for everyone here to run for the hills, why are we standing around arguing? Shouldn’t we flee as well?”
“We can’t,” I say. “We have to find Ellie.”
Taran’s face softens. “Ellie’s fine.” He glances away. “She’s here.”
My heart jolts, skipping a beat. “Where?”
“Wait.” Reid grabs Taran’s arm, his face paling as he searches the darkness around us. “Where’s Emlyn?”
Taran lets out a slow exhale before he meets Reid’s eyes. “He’s in the tent. He took an arrow to the chest.”
Reid darts away, already halfway into the tent before I process what was said.
Then it dawns on me.
I glance from the tent back to Taran. “Are he and Emlyn…?”
Taran nods, looking at the ground. “Their healer’s seen him. He lost a lot of blood, but since he made it this long, she thinks he’ll recover. If infection doesn’t take him.”
I turn back to the tent. A deep, aching sadness rolls through me for Reid, leaving emptiness behind.
He never said anything, but I always assumed part of the reason he threw himself into incanting was to avoid being a third wheel to me and my endless stream of girlfriends.
To have finally found someone, and be at risk of losing them so soon…
“Can he be moved?” Owena asks.
Taran sighs. “We got him here, but it was painful. Cadoc said he could spare us a horse, but he needs rest.”
My mouth tightens. “Where’s Ellie?”
“In the tent. She was getting him comfortable after we pulled the arrow out.”
I bolt in that direction, but Taran grabs my arm, stopping me.
“There’s something we need to talk about.” He lifts his head to my face but doesn’t meet my eyes.
I tug my arm free. “Can it wait?” Ellie’s so close that my insides are leaping against my skin. I can connect with my brother later.
“No, it can’t. It’s about Ellie.”
That stops me. “What is it?”
Taran closes his eyes, taking a deep breath.
“Caeo?”
I whirl around at the most wonderful sound in the world.
Ellie’s voice.
She stands at the entrance of the tent, frozen in place, with all the color draining from her beautiful face.